


everybody lost sombody.

by thewinterbecca



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: AU, Evermore - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Taylor Swift, Loss, Love, Love and Loss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28040076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewinterbecca/pseuds/thewinterbecca
Summary: what died didn't stay dead, you're alive, you're alive in my headin which luke didn't die in 1995 and instead is the one left behind.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Luke Patterson, Alex/Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	everybody lost sombody.

**Author's Note:**

> i have had this au idea in my head of luke surviving the food poisoning and being the one left behind and then i heard marjorie by taylor swift and went feral about it so i wrote some of it out

**everybody lost somebody.**

  
  


He's sitting on a beach. The sun is slipping below the water, the darkness is rolling in; a steady and familiar companion. 

The wind is picking up but still, he sits.

He's thinking about a night some time ago. A week? A month? More? He isn't sure anymore. Time slips away from him like the water from the shore. 

The wind is biting at his skin but he hardly feels it. The cold sinks into his bare arms but still, he sits. 

_This is it boys. After tonight, everything changes._

He sits and he reminisces. He stares into the still fading sun on the horizon and thinks about a thin golden thread that was severed before its time. 

They should have had so much more time. 

(Forever is the sweetest con.)

He was the sun that Luke orbited, the little ball of fire that shone just for him. 

No. That isn't right. Not just for him. He wasn't special, even if that's how Alex Mercer made him feel. For every person that his smile fell on, for every person that was blessed to be looked at by him. 

_Too soon_ , he thinks. It was too soon. 

And still, he sits. 

The two homes behind him burn at his back. 

Luke thinks of the shows they went to together as the sun takes its final bow over the horizon. He thinks of all of the seedy venues they went to in Downtown LA, the ones where the bouncers knew without a doubt that their IDs were fake but didn't care. He thinks of all the West Hollywood shows, the ones where they thought _that's going to be us one day_. He thinks of all the ticket stubs he's thrown into the trash afterward. 

He thinks of all the ones that Alex used to hang onto. 

He wonders where they are now. In the loft or taped to his bedroom door in the room he hasn't been in in months? The room that's a shrine to a boy his parents hardly knew. 

Luke’s mind wanders farther, to the time he wishes he could forget. To the moments that haunt him more than a pair of bad street-dogs.

The water is getting closer to his bare feet now but still, he sits.

The night Luke hit self-destruct on _them_ plays in a loop in his head. Alex’s crestfallen face, Luke burning everything down because it was all he knew how to do. He thinks of the silence that followed. The days that turned into weeks. Weeks of silence in the space of his life where Alex had been. Of the hollowness that had settled in his chest.

He thinks of all the time that they lost. All the time they could have had together before the end.

How was he supposed to know that their time was numbered? They were seventeen. By all accounts, they had all the time in the world.

Still the boy sits and he blames himself. How big his hubris to think they had all the time in the world to fix what Luke had broken. To find each other again, or at least some version of it. Some version where they were a band, a family that they had all chosen.

He thinks back to the night he had finally gotten enough courage and clarity to realize that he would have to fight for the thing he had destroyed if he wanted it to be put back together. 

His courage had gotten him as far as Alex’s front door but still, he was scared. If begging for Alex’s forgiveness didn’t work, what then? 

It had taken him ten minutes to finally knock on the door. 

They had talked on the porch. Alex’s parents were still trying to process having a gay son. They were trying, but it was slow going.

“I need you,” Luke had said.

Alex had always been quick to forgive. 

The water is at his feet now but still, the boy sits.

He still feels him around, he thinks. He'll catch a glimpse of him sometimes; in the reflection of a car going by, in the window of a storefront on Hollywood Blvd. He’ll hear his laugh in a crowd. He’ll see his smile as clear as day from across a busy street while he’s waiting for the light to change on Sunset and Vine but when he blinks it’s a stranger’s face staring back at him.

He knows better than to think there is still some part of Alex that's still around. Nothing happens after you die you just... disappear. When you’re gone, it’s forever. All that's left are photographs. Memories and stories from the people that used to know you. You become a phantom, a footnote in the life of the people you knew.

Even the sun will disappear eventually. 

But still, he sits. He sits and he ponders about the boy he knew. He sits and he wonders if some little piece of the boy he loved is beside him on the sand. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from a bleachers song


End file.
